Originally posted by Airscrew
Grits, the way it was explained to me was combat trim makes minute adjustments to your trim as your flying which normally isnt a problem, but I was told that if you disable combat trim you'll get better turn performance, less wing stalls, and your reverses will be better.
You will only get better turn performance if you are flying a plane that doesnt behave well with CT. The P-38 and Ki84 are the worst, but some others have issues too. Some planes it has zero adverse effect, like in Spits (except for the MkI for some odd reason, at stall speed the CT trims it nose down much like the Ki84 does at high speed and you cant even get enough elevator authority to stall, its very odd and none of the other Spits do that). The planes that it effects the most are the ones that require the most trimming to stay "in" trim. The F4U for example, needs very little trim input, set it and it needs almost no adjustment over very wide speed ranges, while a plane like the P-38 needs quite a bit. I think your success last night was far more a result of better use (read more notches) of flaps than it was turning off Combat Trim.
In addition, and most importantly to me, with CT on the planes are much more steady when I am aiming for a shot. The lack of having to push the stick forward or backwards to compensate for even a momentary out of trim situation makes gunnery much less difficult. This is all IMHO of course.
Originally posted by Slash27
And why not?
At high speeds the Ki84 has very little elevator authority because CT will trim it full nose down to keep it in level flight. When you try to pull out, because the trim is in the full nose down position you can barely even pull enough G's to black out. What I do (I do this in the P-38 too which are the only two I do it in) is I leave CT on, but I have trim mapped to a hat on my throttle. When you go into a dive, trim so you have to hold the stick forward to keep the nose down instead of trimming it down or relying on CT to keep the nose down. When you want to pull out, just let the stick back to center, and you will now have the elevator control to not only black yourself out, but also to pull the wings off. You can never get enough elevator authority to do that with CT on. As soon as I slow down enough, I switch CT back on (I also have CT mapped to my stick so I can turn it off and on when I want too).
Finally, most of you know Leviathn and Shane, they both fly with CT turned on, so it cant be all that bad eh?
